, it is
consequently the best." No sooner thought than done. Before a week was
passed I was a pupil of the city school. About the school I remember
very little, only that there was a large room with a blackboard,
stifling air in spite of the fact that the windows were always open,
and an endless number of boys in baize and linen jackets, unkempt and
barefoot, or in wooden shoes, which made a fearful noise. It was very
sad. But even then, as unfortunately in later years, I had so few
pleasing illusions about going to school that the conditions
previously described to me did not appear specially dreadful when I
became personally acquainted with them. I simply supposed that things
had to be thus. But toward autumn, when my mother arrived on the scene
and saw me coming home from school with the wooden-shoe boys, she was
beside herself and cast an anxious glance at my hair, which she
doubtless thought she could not well trust in such company. She then
had one of her heart-to-heart talks with my father, who was probably
told that he had again taken only himself into consideration. That
same day my withdrawal from school was announced to Rector Beda, who
lived diagonally across the street from us. He was not angry at the
announcement, declared, on the contrary, to my mother that "he had
really been surprised. * * *" Thus far all was well. Just criticism
had been exercised and action had been taken in accord with it. But
now that it was necessary to find something better to substitute for
the school, even my mother was at her wits' end. Teachers seemed to
be, or were in fact, lacking, and as it had been impossible in so
short a time to establish relations to the good families of the city,
it was decided for the present to let me grow up wild and calmly to
wait till something turned up. But to prevent my lapsing into dense
ignorance I was to read an hour daily to my mother and learn some
Latin and French words from my father, in addition to geography and
history.

"Will you be equal to that, Louis?" my mother had asked.

"Equal to? What do you mean by 'equal to?' Of course I am equal to it.
Your same old lack of confidence in me."

"Not twenty-four hours ago you yourself were full of doubt about it."

"I presume the plan did not appeal to me then. But if it must be, I
understand the Prussian pharmacopoeia as well as anybody, and in my
parents' house French was spoken. As for the rest, to speak of it
would be ridiculous. You